Confused about phpMyAdmin and MySQL password settings

['Forum Post]

>From what I know, mySql installation by default has a single user called
root, with no password and on the localhost machine. 

If you are familiar with the command line, you could try this out .. 

$ mysql -u root
mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('yourpassword') WHERE
User='root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> quit

Also, I would suggest you give a look into this program called
mysql-admin. It is similar to phpMyAdmin but not web based, but rather
a nice GUI. 

If you are starting from scratch again watch out. The phpMyAdmin is
broken. dpkg will return an error if you try to purge it. Search for
the fix somewhere in these forums.. or just browse through my previous
posts, it is somewhere there. 

Also you don't need the sudo part. The root that mySql creates is
different from the regular Unix root.  You can still login as mySql
root user through your  regular username.


-- 
harisund